Christmas Elf to a Birthday Pixie

Hi everybody,

Jill here, and today, I'm mixing up a brand new Christmas set...

By taking the cutest little Christmas elf out there, and changing her into the cutest little Birthday Pixie...

I have no doubt you are all in the same boat as me, whereby we want NEEEED all the newest sets as soon as they're released, but obviously we don't all have a bottomless pit of money, so sadly, we need to reason with ourselves make excuses on how we can justify our spends haha.  And, again, if you're anything like me, no time does this come more into play, than with the Christmas releases.  They're always awesome, always adorable, and always impossible to resist - but because you only use them once a year - it makes it all the more important to be able to stretch them.  So that's what I've hoped to do for you today.

I used Mama Elephant's 'Chrismtas Spirit' set, changing it up into a little 'Happy Birthday' scene.  I die-cut a panel of card into various pieces to create my scene, using Mama Elephant's Landscape Trio, and Lawn Fawn's Grassy Border, watercolour washed them, popped the pieces back together, and die-cut a circle from it.  I also die-cut a circle from my plain white background panel, and in-laid my scene back into it.  I then stamped out my little cute character and several presents from the 'Christmas Spirit' set, and a couple of balloons from Paper Smooches Hullabaloo set.  I then watercoloured and fussy cut them all and built up my scene using foam adhesive.  I then stamped out my sentiment from Mama Elephant's 'Woodland Gifts' set.  I added some black strings to my balloons, mounted onto black card to make my scene 'pop', and there you have it.

I hope this has gave you the excuse you need to get EVERYTHING you want haha - Go on, you deserve it - there's always other ways to stretch our sets :)

As always, everything is linked below, so be sure to have a peek in store.

See you next week.

Jillx

      

  

Pretend Pencil Sketching.

Hi everybody,

Jill here.  How are you all feeling today?

I was on Instagram the other day, and the guys at Mama Elephant posted this amazing picture to celebrate 'National Elephant Day'.  It was so simple, yet beautiful and brilliant.  It was the 'Ella and friends' set, and it looked like it had been pencil sketched.  I fell in love with it instantly, and knew I had to try something similar...

I don't even know how they did it to be fair, but certainly mine doesn't come close to how awesome theirs looked, haha.  Never mind, practise makes perfect, eh?

I used grey colouring pencils, but I think it would have looked much better using actual pencils.

I used Mama Elephant's 'Woodland Gifts' to create my 'sketch'.  I stamped out my scene using a really pale ink, and followed/sketched over the lines using a dark grey colouring pencil with a lighter grey to blend.  I introduced a touch of colour and some Glossy Accents to the balloon for a little interest.  I stamped the sentiment in grey ink, and matted onto an Avery Elle 'Truffle' note card.   Obviously this technique is all about the simplicity, so I left it there.

*update*

I've had a try with a normal pencil, and a little shading and blending, so thought I'd share where that got me...

...I actually much prefer this as it's a lot darker and a lot more intense.

What a relaxing technique though?!  I really enjoyed it and can't wait to give it a little more time.

I hope you like both efforts, and would love to see if any of you have given this technique a try yet, if so, maybe leave a link below and we can share our findings?

As always, everything I used is linked below.

See you next week.

Jillx